


Pitbull

by jellybeanforest



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, Breeding Battle Slaves like Pitbulls, Child Abuse, Cultural Differences, Ethnic Diaspora, Flashbacks, Found Family, Gen, GotG Kinkmeme Prompt, Rookermas Gift Exchange, Slavery, Slight Canon Divergence, Treating Battle Slaves like Pitbulls, Yondad, Yondu doesn't quite instadopt Peter, Yondu's Backstory, father-son bonding, kid!Kraglin, kid!Peter, original character death, pit fighting, ravagers as family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 02:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeanforest/pseuds/jellybeanforest
Summary: Quill is not built to be a Ravager. Much too small and soft in all meanings of the word, the boy will be dead within the year if Yondu can’t break and remold him into something useful. So he decides to take Quill out on solo missions to train him, greatly taxing his already limited patience. Unfortunately, on one of their outings, Yondu’s past comes back to haunt them in the form of a Kree bounty hunter contracted by Yondu’s original owner: his breeder. Now, he must save himself and his young protégé from a life of slavery before they reach Hala.For the Rookermas Gift Exchange. Based on a LJ GotG Kinkmeme Prompt.





	Pitbull

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LoveisYonduBlue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveisYonduBlue/gifts).



> My Secret Santa recipient, loveisyondublue, asked for “something with Yondu and Peter and Kraglin being family.” Of course, I had to interpret that as “How Yondu and Peter became a family” mixed with a generous pinch of angst. I hope you like it!
> 
> The concept of the name “Yondu Udonta” being a misheard slave number is from Write_Like_An_American and features prominently in their fanfics “Straight Until Boiled” and “Blame it on the Stars.”

Chest heaving and every breath a pained wheeze, 12213 stands wobbly opposite 14203. His ragged tahlei lies limp to one side, a large slice half-cleaving the bright-red plume from his skull. Blood slicks his face, dripping over lips and down his chin, painting his vision a blurry dark blue. He hears the roar of spectators cheering for their new champion, for him, but all he tastes is copper and death.

Fortunately for 12213, his opponent has not fared much better. The larger Lumphomoid is missing an eye and half the fingers of his right hand, but these injuries pale in comparison to the long gash across his belly, which he holds tight to keep his innards from spilling into the muck.

It’s a shame, really. At approximately 20, 14203 is an old-timer, like him, and they share a certain fondness borne of being reared in the same pen. The other slave had even slipped him a crust of bread through the ventilation grate when 12213 had drawn the ire of their trainer for his smart mouth and was locked in the box for the night with no evening rations and ten lashes for his trouble.

The least 12213 can do is bestow upon him a quick, honorable death in the pit.

Swiping an arm across his slack mouth to clear away the blood, 12213 whistles expectantly, but the Yaka arrow lies dull and motionless in the mud, the innate connection with his signature weapon severed the moment 14203 had carved into his tahlei.

14203 drops to his knees, pain overtaking him as his bloodlust wanes and adrenaline ebbs. He’s dead already, but his body doesn’t know it yet. The crowd chants for the inevitable, but all 12213 can hear is his own breath joined by 14203’s shallow gasps. He picks up the Yaka between them. Dropping low, 12213 embraces the other man, allowing him to lean boneless against him, his cheek resting on his shoulder and his breath warming his neck.

“M’sorry, O-Ta,” 12213 whispers.

“Me too,” 14203 slurs back.

12213 buries the arrow into his gut, angled sharply upwards towards his heart. 14203 shutters, his limbs twitching in 12213’s tight hold. He stills, lying limp in the other slave’s arms.

12213 lets him slide off, rising to accept the crowd’s admiration shortly before his legs collapse under him. The last thing he sees is the mud stained dark with purple blood and 14203’s glistening entrails.

Long after 14203 has been carried off and the crowd dispersed, they put 12213 under sedation to repair his tattered tahlei, but when he comes to, the vet is whispering to his furious owner about removal and replacement. _It has sustained too much damage,_ the man had said. _But there are experimental alternatives we can explore._

Unnoticed, 12213 feels around the pate of his head to tentatively examine the damage to his crest, only to hiss at the stitched gash left in the void where his tahlei should have been.

12213 openly weeps, his grief a cascading series of stuttering sobs.

“Can’t you make him stop that?” Master asks, exasperated.

There’s a prick of a needle and a cool flush in his veins as 12213 slips into dreamless slumber.

When he wakes hours later, he’s laid across a cot lowered on the floor of his pen. A double portion of meat, the usual reward for winners of death matches, awaits him on a tray slid through a panel in the door.

12213 rolls off his thin mattress. Weakened and still groggy and numb from sedatives, one shaky hand reaches out to pull the corner of the tray closer. His jaw aches as he chews on the slices, cut thin by a merciful slave on kitchen duty. The meat is lukewarm, the fat congealed on the plate underneath, but it’s properly seasoned and fills his belly just the same. He thinks of 14203 and leaves behind a swallow for the dead man, a nibble for his soul’s trek to the afterlife. One day, another slave, another victor, will provide him the same death rites.

It’s the best any of them can hope for in the pits.

* * *

**Eight Years Later**

Yondu Udonta stands outside the barren intake cell, where his latest project temporarily resides.

Small and unassuming, with no claws nor great intellect with which to protect themselves from predators, Terrans are more populous than expected on their homeworld. But what they lack in defensive capability, they more than make up for in sonic projection. The pitch and volume of the boy’s wailing grates on Yondu’s ears, like the long scrap of a rookie’s M-ship screeching against a metal landing strip. Truly, Peter Quill’s lung capacity is remarkable for one so tiny. Yondu would be mildly impressed if he wasn’t so thoroughly annoyed. Let the boy cry it out, he tells himself. He will tire eventually… hopefully before Yondu wrings his scrawny neck himself to stop that relentless shrieking. He reckons it must have been at least an hour since they picked up li’l Quill. Yondu checks his chronometer.

It’s only been thirty minutes.

_Fuck._

Clearly, immediate intervention was necessary before the boy drove him to more desperate, potentially-fatal measures. With the way Taserface is longingly eyeing the airlock, he wouldn’t be surprised if the child met with an unfortunate accident in the next ten minutes. He might even be inclined to look the other way…

The memory of a parade of hands – blue, pink, tentacled, all diminutive and trusting – enclosed in his own intrudes on his thoughts.

No.

He has other plans for Quill.

Yondu enters to find the boy curled in the corner. Quill scoots back as far as he can go. Sniffling and wiping his dripping nose across a stiffened sleeve, he holds quivering hands up to protect his face against his kidnapper and possible assailant.

Yondu watches him take in another deep breath, but before Quill can commence his auditory terrorism, he steps forward and scoops him by the front of his shirt, pulling him close as the boy struggles against his grip.

“Stop it,” he orders, his tone a low growl that usually silenced any half-wit rookie on the receiving end of it.

Quill screams instead.

Yondu shakes him violently, his head snapping back and forth with the force of his manhandling. “Stop yer bellyachin’!”

This does nothing to quell the boy’s howling; so pushing him up against the nearest wall, Yondu presses one hand flat over his mouth, in an effort to muffle the source of intolerable noise.

Quill bites down hard, sinking sharp baby teeth into the meat of his palm. With a surprised yelp, Yondu drops the boy, reflexively smacking him about the ears. Quill crumples into a sputtering pile, his renewed cries reaching a fearful pitch, as he tries to edge back into his corner.

Yondu captures him by his shirt collar. “I said quiet, you li’l asshole!” he bellows. “Shut up and I won’t have’ta make ya!”

However, Quill fails to obey any command, instead turning to kick his new captain in the shins. Yondu flips him back over, pinning him facedown onto the grate with the boy still flailing wildly, screaming nonsensical gibberish Yondu swears is a repeating phrase.

_Gibberish?_

Carefully, Yondu prods around Quill’s ears to the boy’s audible displeasure, noting the absence of any firm translator implants underneath the skin.

_Oh fer fuck’s sake._

* * *

Two hours later, Quill stands before him, subdued and more-importantly silent, stroking the lightly-puffed skin behind his right ear where Doc had implanted his translator chip.

Yondu hands him a standard-issue jumpsuit.

“What’s this?” the boy inquires.

“Yer new reds. Put ‘em on.”

“These clothes are smelly!” he protests. He holds the uniform at arm’s length, his nose upturned at the stench emanating from the worn leather. “I like the ones I’m wearing, thanks.”

Keeping his current outfit is not an option. It isn’t near warm enough nor durable enough for the hardscrabble life of a spacer. Plus, Quill needed to blend in with the local color if he is to have any chance of acceptance and survival amongst the crew.

“Tough shit. Yer a Ravager now, an’ you’ll dress like one.”

He gives Yondu a quick once-over. “Can’t I just wear a coat over my regular clothes, like you?”

“No. Coats’re fer Cap’n’s,” Yondu bites back. “Grunts like you wear the standard uniform.”

The boy is proving to be one of his more difficult recruits, and regrettably, he cannot default to his tried-and-true method of conflict resolution: whistling his problems away. As a result, Quill had yet to learn that orders are non-negotiable.

“I’m not putting that on. You can’t make me!”

It’s Yondu’s fault for entertaining his ceaseless flow of questions. The boy clearly required discipline and threats to keep him in line.

Yondu grabs Quill by the upper arm, pulling him up slightly, making the boy flinch and his joint ache. “You don’t want’a test me on this, kid. If I have’ta strip ya down an’ put it on ya myself, all yer shit’s goin’ in the incinerator.”

To his credit, Quill doesn’t back down, staring him directly in the eye. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Frowning, Yondu squeezes his captured limb before letting go, his hand moving to the back of the collar of his flannel shirt, stripping it off the boy with a tug. Before Quill can react, Yondu turns heel, heading towards the incinerator. Yondu is deaf to the boy’s protestations as he tries to hold back the Captain, latching onto his arm and pulling backwards as hard as he can. Unperturbed by the child practically hanging off his body, Yondu trudges forward, unlatching the door and chucking his shirt inside.

Quill collapses in a heap on the floor beside him, watching flames engulf the red checkered cotton, turning it to a black crisp then to wispy ash.

“Wear the uniform,” Yondu orders.

* * *

With the boy standing before him, properly dressed in oversized red leathers and weathered boots, Yondu holds out a small stick between thumb and index finger. “You see this ‘ere credit chip, Quill? This’s where people store their currency. Ya need ta learn to pinch it if yer goin’a earn enough ta keep yerself off the menu.”

Quill’s face scrunches in fear at the familiar warning. Yondu thinks it’s fucking hilarious the way his eyes water, his fists disappear within his too-long cuffed sleeves, and his shoulders hunch small as he tries to make himself vanish from view.

“Lemme show ya.”

After outfitting Quill, Yondu had confiscated all his Terran belongings: his clothing, his backpack with all its contents, and most-distressingly, his Walk-man. _You won’t need these no more,_ Yondu had said, but his possession of these items serves a singular purpose: extortion. Every subsequent order issued to Quill is an implicit threat to destroy the lot if he disobeys.

Really, Yondu reckons he should do it now. Lay all Quill’s former belongings out on a metal slab and roll it into the funerary incinerator while the boy watches his former life burn. That should kill the Terran in him. Break him and allow Yondu to rebuild that soft boy into something stronger, something that can survive this life.

He can do it. He should do it.

He looks at Quill, trying so hard to follow his instructions, to get it right the first time.

But he won’t. For now, the continued existence of his Terran relics is enough to make Quill compliant, to keep him docile, as Yondu tries to fast-track his lessons on how to be a productive member of his crew.

He turns away from Quill but feels a light pressure slip into his pocket. He raps the detected hand across the knuckles, causing Quill to cry out.

“I felt that. If ya can’t do it without alertin’ the mark, then misdirect their attention to somethin’ else,” he advises, pulling Quill’s new pocket-knife from his own sleeve. “See, while you was bitchin’ ‘bout yer hand, I stole this right off’a ya.”

Quill swipes the weapon back, glaring at his mentor. “That’s not fair!”

“Life ain’t fair. Now, try again.”

“If I steal it from you, can I have my Walkman back?”

Yondu gives him a flat stare.

“Try again.”

* * *

At age twelve, 12213 has never owned a thing in his life. The sandals on his feet, clothes on his back, food in his belly… hell, even the body housing that belly belongs to Master. He couldn’t tell you the cost of a loaf of bread, but he knows his own worth: 20,000 credits three years past when he was first sold to the pits, with his value increasing in the afterglow of every victory. 14203 had been purchased alongside him for 25,000 credits because Master liked the cut of his jaw and the promise in that juvenile muscle. The other boy is growing into his predicted heft by the day, but what 12213 lacked in stature, he more than made up for in agility.

Pound for pound, 12213 prides himself on being the better deal of the two.

12213 slips under 14203’s defenses, hooking him by the waist to whip around behind him in a lock. Being significantly larger, 14203 breaks his hold with little difficulty, but the smaller slave quickly grabs his wrist to spin him out, blocking the half-hearted punch aimed to glance his face and returning a hard fist to 14203’s open stomach, doubling the youth over to reduce his height advantage.

“Thought chu said no contact,” 14203 wheezes, tapping his opponent’s shoulder to pause the sparring session.

12213 smiles. “My word don’t mean squat in the pit.” Latching onto the friendly arm on his shoulder, he sweeps a leg behind 14203, catching the back of his ankle to tumble him down.

Once on the ground, 14203 quickly captures 12213’s fleet foot, forcefully tripping him up so he falls into the dust alongside him. He flips over to trap the smaller juvenile under his superior weight, carefully moving to a sitting position. “This ain’t no pit,” he points out conversationally from his perch atop his flattened opponent. 12213 would be dead if it had been.

“Give up?” 14203 asks, shifting heavier on 12213 when he refuses to yield. “C’mon… you ain’t gittin’ up ‘til ya do it,” he tries again to coax him into admitting defeat.

Another twenty seconds pass as 12213 struggles to wriggle out from under 14203 to no avail. Finally, he reaches back to tap the other youth’s knee.

14203 slips off, rising to a standing position before offering 12213 a hand up.

“Almost had chu that time, O-Ta,” 12213 grumbles.

14203 is unimpressed. “You an’ I both know ‘almost’ can be the difference between walkin’ out or bein’ dragged out’a the pit. ‘Almost’ means less than yer word.”

“You still salty ‘bout that?” he says, as if the offense hadn’t occurred a mere three minutes prior.

“We’s from the same pen, Yon-Ta. We don’t do each other dirty like that outside the pit.” 14203 crosses his arms. “It ain’t right.”

“Least I didn’t whistle,” 12213 points out.

“An’ do what? The arrow’s in its box. It can’t hear ya from clear out ‘ere.”

“Least I didn’t try.”

12213 can see the moment 14203 decides to drop it. He exhales, his annoyance becoming a whisper at the corner of his mouth. “Yer a slipp’ry jackass. Don’t know why I put up with ya.”

Later that night, 12213 reminds him exactly why when he shares a purloined sweetbread taken from the overseers’ evening meal when they had supped too close to his pen. He had hidden it under a layer of clean straw until he pulls it out after dark, cold but still soft. He tears it in half, handing one end to 14203. He doesn’t apologize, never has and never will until it’s much too late, but 14203 never seems to hold it against him for too long.

“One of these days, they’re goin’a flay the skin off yer back when ya git caught–”

“If I git caught,” he corrects him. “Maybe next time, I’ll nick a pat of the yellow stuff.”

“Ya mean butter?” 14203 asks, his face expressing disbelief. “Impossible. It’s greasy an’ will squish to nothin’ in yer fist.”

“But the taste… I heard from the scullery slaves it’s smooth, fatty, an’ kind o’ sweet.”

“It can’t possibly be all those things at once. Those’re just lies they tell gullible younglings. We’s too old to believe that.”

“It’s true, O-Ta,” 12213 insists. “Et-Du tasted it on the sly, an’ it’s how they say. I aim ta steal some an’ find out myself.”

“–An’ when that happens, I’ll give ya last rights.”

12213 scans the area then leans in close.

“Or I’ll break my way out’a here, an’ git me a taste o’ butter,” he whispers his secret to 14203. It’s a rebellious notion, one that would earn him another brand seared into his flesh at the very least if Master could peer inside his skull to view the thoughts within, but 12213 fancies another heist where he will steal himself away from Master and this life altogether.

“Then you’ll really be in deep shit when ya git caught.”

“If I git caught.”

* * *

The nature of being captain of his own Ravager ship means that Yondu can’t dedicate every waking moment to Quill’s re-education. There are decisions to be made, credits to earn, other non-Quill recruits to terrorize. He simply didn’t have time to adequately complete the job.

Unfortunately, there are very few among his crew with the temperament to train someone as incompetent, pathetic, and blubbery as Quill. It’s been an entire two weeks, and the boy still mopes over his dead mother and lost Terra. Yondu is generous enough to pretend not to hear his broken humming and muffled weeping echoing through the vents from the adjoining room, but most Ravagers wouldn’t be so kind to ignore such weakness.

Good thing he has a spare Ravager-in-training: the cabin boy, Kraglin.

Unlike Quill, Kraglin is fit for this life. He’s tough, angry, and while young, is already showing glimpses of the sadistic asshole he will one day become. If he put them together, hopefully some of Kraglin’s forbearance and grit will rub off on the baby Terran. It was worth a shot.

“Kraglin. Yer in charge o’ Quill fer the shift. Teach ‘im how ta fight an’ how ta do yer job, an’ there might be a promotion in it fer ya.”

That piques the boy’s interest. “A promotion, Cap’n?”

“Yeah… I was thinkin’ you could be a supervisor,” Yondu says smoothly, dropping his gaze downward to indicate Quill as his one and only subordinate.

Kraglin narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Ya mean babysitter,” he spits out, before he can stop himself.

“I said supervisor, Obfonteri,” Yondu repeats sternly. He barely has the patience for one troublesome child on his crew.

Kraglin looks appropriately apologetic, quickly realizing he had overstepped. “Yes Cap’n. Glad fer the opportunity, sir.”

That’s what Yondu likes to hear: Obedience tinged with a healthy dose of self-preservation. With any luck, Quill will model his own attitude after this older child.

Leaving Quill in the care of the Eclector’s cabin boy is one of his better ideas when it came to his new recruit, Yondu thinks as he heads towards the Bridge to resume his normal duties.

Kraglin watches him go. Once out of sight, he turns to face his new annoyance. “So… Quill, was it? You know anything ‘bout throwin’ knives?”

Quill shakes his head.

“Well… I need ta practice, an’ yer ‘bout the right height,” Kraglin says, palming his mop of hair to size up the younger child. “The trick is ta stand real still-like so I don’t nick ya. Would be yer own damn fault if I do.”

* * *

Yondu comes to collect Quill for evening mess, only to stumble across a rather disturbing scene between the two boys.

“…Everyone in Bomont has a giant stick up their butts about dancing, but then the townspeople are burning a bunch of books, see, because of how sinful the stuff inside them are,” Peter tells Kraglin. The two are sitting on a storage crate, legs kicked out in front of them, looking out a large porthole at the stars. “So, Reverend John Lithgow decides it’s gone too far ‘cause he just wanted to get rid of dancing, but now they’re doing all sorts of bad stuff. Kevin Bacon then has a big dance outside Bomont and everyone goes, and he’s like the best dancer there, and everyone cheers for him and everything. And that’s the story of how Kevin Bacon saved the day through a dance-off.”

Kraglin looks dubious. “I don’t know, Pete. Savin’ the day with a dance-off? That sounds kind’a far-fetched.”

“Footloose is the greatest movie of all time back on Earth, possibly the universe! I mean, it’s kind of hard to explain because you sorta have to see it with all the dancing and everything, but–”

“What’re you doin’?” Yondu asks from behind the two, his tone icy. Kraglin immediately jumps off his seat to face his Captain, standing at attention, naked fear plain on his face before he manages to switch to a more-bland expression.

“Didn’t I tell ya to teach Quill yer duties? That means takin’ messages in the comm room, cleanin’ the commons, fine engine work fer you skinny sonsabitches,” he reprimands the youth. “Hell, even self-defense would’a been acceptable. What the fuck is this?”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Peter pipes up, likewise springing down from his perch to stand between Cap’n and Kraglin. “He was doing all that, but then we got to talking about Earth, and… it wasn’t that long, Yondu. Honest.”

“That’s Cap’n or sir to you,” Yondu says, grabbing the boy by the shoulder and pulling him closer to his side. He turns back towards Kraglin. “Ya couldn’t even teach ‘im basic respect, boy?”

“You leave him alone, you… you bully!” Quill cries out.

Yondu strikes him then, right across his pink face, but he uses the flat of his hand rather than a fist. The boy is tiny and new, and Yondu’s unacknowledged debt to him comparatively large. This instance of insubordination, while public, didn’t warrant permanent damage.

Quill covers his face against the darkening bruise, fixing to cry, but lucky for him, he doesn’t, having learned it only worsened Cap’n’s temper. At least the boy isn’t completely stupid.

Still… Yondu looks at Kraglin, whose eyes dart from Quill back to his Captain. He reads something like reproach in the youth’s blank stare, but perhaps that is only projection.

“You… git,” he orders. “Yer dismissed.”

Kraglin hesitates momentarily before he turns to leave, sneaking a look back at the pair over his shoulder, his step quickening when he catches Yondu’s glare.

For his part, Yondu is gravely disappointed. He was so sure that Kraglin would be a positive influence on Quill that he hadn’t even considered that Quill would taint his perfectly-good cabin boy. The child truly is a menace.

Clearly, he has to take care of the situation himself.

He crouches down to meet Quill at his level, one hand latched onto his arm and the other cupping the boy’s chin to turn it forward, forcing him to look Yondu directly in the eye. “Now, you listen here, boy. Yer goin’a stop with all this Terran shit. No more o’ yer fool talk o’ Walk-mans or Foot-Loose, or any o’ that shit. Far as yer concerned, yer Terra’s gone. Yer a Ravager now, one o’ us. Best chu start gittin’ real comfortable with that reality, ‘cause the sooner ya do, the easier this’s goin’a go fer you.”

Quill squirms against his hold. “I don’t want to be a Ravager! I just want to go home.”

“You are home, kid. So ya better git used to it.” Yondu straightens up then pulls him along towards the M-ship docks, his next lesson already coalescing in his mind.

Quill will be a Ravager, even if he has to teach the boy everything himself.

* * *

12213 had grown up in the youngling pen alongside his peers, and had never considered who his people were or where he had come from. By age six, all he knew was the collar, the pen, and the whip. His fellow slaves were rival and friend, sibling and enemy alike.

That all changed with the arrival of the Kikahee to the kennels.

They’re deep blue, with raised red crests and matching eyes, same as him. The six of them sit, two females and four males, removed from the rest in the pen across the way, but when they see 12213, they grunt and whistle at him, clacking their tongues in a strange fashion.

“What chu say?” 12213 hollers back at them. “Can’t right understand chu under all that whistlin’.”

Visibly disappointed, they turn their backs on him, seemingly having lost interest in 12213 altogether.

The child feels embarrassed, like he has been caught out doing something wrong but he knows not what. This shame is quickly overtaken by anger at these newcomers’ collective and unequivocal rejection.

“Well, screw you, too!”

The Kikahee avoid the other slaves, including 12213. They chitter and click amongst themselves during the day, but at night, they wail, eyes upturned to the sky, prostrating themselves to a master invisible to 12213. He tries to follow their line of sight but finding nothing but the dark, feels foolish for having tried.

It’s only later that the youngest of the bunch, a girl-child his age renamed 05081, approaches him that he understands.

“Play?” She asks gruffly, the unfamiliar intonation scratching her vocal cords. She holds out her hands, one palm facing up and one down. 12213 stares at her outstretched hands, trying to ascertain the meaning of this new game and its rules. He grasps one hand, then spins her around, twisting the arm behind her back in the way he and the other younglings are accustomed to playing.

She cries out. An older man hurries over, pulling the girl to him and away from 12213.

“No!” He reprimands the young slave. He clicks to the girl, then glares up at 12213.

“She wanted to play,” 12213 replies bewildered, unused to being chastised by someone who looks so like him.

The man’s accent is heavy but his words, unmistakable. “You stay away.”

“You speak Kree?” 12213 asks, head tilted as he re-evaluates these newcomers. “Yer like me, but chu all talk funny.”

“We’re not like you.”

“Ya look ‘xactly like me,” he insists, eyeing the man’s bright red crest, the most obvious visual distinction between them and their Kree masters.

The man shakes his head. “I have watched you, young one. You speak like one of them, associate with non-believers, and never pray to Anthos. You know nothing of our people,” he says, every charge a condemnation. “We are _Kikahee_ , cave dwellers of Alpha Centauri and followers of Anthos. You are _Nidovhi_ , lost, nameless with no tribe, less than the godless _Akuun_ ,” he spits out the last word like a curse.

“I ain’t Needy-Ovi. I’m Yon-Du-Du-Yon-Ta.” 12213 says the numbers slow, pausing after each one in the string.

05081 clicks at him, and the man responds to her on the boy’s behalf, leading her away.

He stays clear of the Kikahee after that, but their presence and the man’s words spark a curiosity within him that is not easily extinguished.

“Where do ya think we come from, O-Ta?” 12213 asks 14203 later.

“Dunno, why ya askin’?”

“The other blues with the fins said they was from Alpha Centauri. Ya think there’s people like us outside the pens? Why are we in here, an’ they’s out there.”

14203 shrugs. “Du-Nin says they was sold out by other blues. ‘Nother tribe they was fightin’. Sold ‘em to the slavers as spoils.”

“That right?” Something in 12213’s belly flips.

“Yeah…” he confirms. His eyes travel down to find 12213’s fists clenched. “Want’a wrestle? First one to pin his opponent down for a three-count wins.”

Later, Orr-Kip the overseer confirms his suspicions. “Yes, you were sold when you were barely a pouchling fresh from your father’s teat,” he says, suppressing laughter.

12213 doesn’t quite understand the joke. He reckons he is not quite sophisticated enough to do so but too proud to admit it by asking questions.

Orr-Kip continues, “Your kind, inferior as they may be, breed like locusts. They simply didn’t want you – too many mouths to feed – but rest assured, with the money gained from your sale, your parents were able to feed your elder siblings for the winter at the very least.”

12213 doesn’t know how to feel about that.

Over the next few days, he watches the Kikahee, particularly 05081 and the older man. The man 12213 later learns is her father holds her close to his pouch, whistling softly as he strokes her scalp when she cries. At meal-time, he tears off the best portions of his rations and passes it into her tiny hands. 12213 prods his own pouch, running his finger along the velvety seam where it sits flush to his belly. Did he once have someone like that who…

No.

12213 was clearly the unwanted child, the one deemed expendable. Had his parents even named him before they placed him in the hands of his first master, or was he a number even back then, a price that allowed his more-valuable siblings to live? The questions gnaw at the corners of his mind.

One truth was plain. His people, his original tribe, had cast him off easily, abandoned him to the collar before he could whistle his first word in their native tongue, and even now, they still refused to accept him as one of their own.

It’s no matter. If they won’t claim him, he will have to carve out his own space to belong. He will band them together – the cast-offs, outsiders, and broken bits – to form a tribe of his own, one that will never reject him.

Perhaps then, he will feel whole.

* * *

“Alright, Quill. From the top. Hold the blaster like so.” Yondu readjusts his grip on the weapon. “Aim by lookin’ through the site ‘ere, lockin’ on yer target.” He indicates the eye atop the blaster. “An’ fire.”

Quill pulls the trigger, missing the empty tin by a good two feet. Yondu looks at the scorched tree branch to the left of their intended target, letting out a frustrated huff. He’d taken the time to fly to the nearest habitable planet to teach the boy how to shoot, and Quill wasn’t getting any better after a full twenty minutes of flawless instruction.

“I told you I wasn’t any good at this. I won’t ever get it,” the boy says, dropping his arm to one side.

“Not with that attitude. Why… back in my day, if ya didn’t master a weapon right quick, you was dinner that night,” Yondu remarks, gravely serious. “So, why don’t chu lift that blaster an’ shoot that tin o’er yonder.”

“But the blaster’s too big, and my arm’s getting tired,” Quill complains.

“You don’t hit that target, an’ you’ll be dinner tonight. Now, pick up yer blaster an’ do what I showed ya.”

At Yondu’s threat, the boy’s back goes a touch straighter as he lifts the blaster, aiming once again at the tin before firing.

He misses the can, but this time, his plasma bolt finds a darting squirrel creature. It screeches on contact, dropping to the forest floor in a rustle of leaves, a thin plume of smoke rising from its motionless body. The smell of burned flesh and fur fills the air.

“Did… did I kill it?” Quill stutters, his voice wobbly, on the verge of fresh tears.

“Sure did. Killed it dead,” Yondu says, something akin to pride in his voice. The kid had missed the target, which was less than ideal, but he had made his first kill. That had to count for something.

Quill rushes forward, stopping just short of the fluffy creature, its face frozen in fear with tiny buck teeth jutting out of its wide mouth and its tiny blue mane disheveled and a wide swath of it singed. He prods it in the shoulder, but its tiny body lies still.

“I’m a murderer!” he wails. He’s no better than those bullies back home who had killed that frog not too long ago.

Disappointed in the boy’s reaction, Yondu steps forward, crouching down to retrieve the tiny creature.

“Don’t touch it!” Quill tries to push him away.

“Why? Chip’ins are good eatin’,” Yondu replies, snatching up the limp body.

The boy is scandalized. “How… how can you eat it just like that?”

“How can ya not? Taste kind’a gamey, like hyera, but if ya season it right with heavy salt on the fat, should crisp up somethin’ nice.” Yondu is nothing if not practical, a trait Quill clearly lacks. “What crawled up yer ass, kid? Yer kind ain’t no vegetarians. I saw those big meat creatures grazin’ on Terra. You tellin’ me they’s all pets?”

“That’s different.”

Yondu chuckles at his youthful naivety. “How so? Yer food had’a die fer you to eat it. This li’l feller least had a fair shot o’ livin’ ‘fore ya put a bolt in its side.”

“But… well… It’s just different,” Quill insists. “I’m not eating that.”

“You will,” Yondu replies simply. Still crouched low, he takes out his short knife to carefully slice the animal open and remove its innards before gut-rot set in. Quill pales and turns away from the show of carnage as the moist entrails slip out of the crevice in the creature’s belly, falling to the ground with a sickly squelch.

“You’ll git used to it, kid.” Yondu slices into the skin of the Chip’in’s ankles to peel away its pelt, leaving its blood-glossy flesh to coagulate in the air.

Quill peaks over his shoulder then quickly turns back at the sight.

“Are you?” he asks.

“Am I what?”

“Used to it,” he clarifies.

The first time Yondu remembers killing something, he’s four and hungry. The pile of baby orloni had been hidden under straw just outside his pen, barely within reach of his growing fingers. His face pressed flush to the bars, he had carefully edged closer to them until he reached the first pup. Plucking it from the nest, he had quickly tossed it back, naked and wriggling and squealing, into his mouth, crushing the soft bones of its head with his teeth in a burst of warm coppery red. It barely calmed the gnaw within his gut, so he reached out, again and again, until the nest was empty and his stomach less so.

“I ain’t never had yer problem. I weren’t ever soft like you,” he finally answers, rising to his full height.

He looks past Quill at the still-intact original target. “Fuck it. I’m goin’a give ya two blasters. No need ta aim right when you can just spray the area with plasma charges. Yer bound to hit somethin’, ‘specially if it’s big an’ close.”

* * *

05081 had not been nearly as frustrating for 12213 to train.

After the Kikahee adults were taken away, she became despondent, isolated, with little knowledge of how things worked in the kennels. 12213 reckons 05081 is looking for something familiar when she reaches out to him, a fellow Centaurian, but he is just as foreign as any of the other slave children.

“Sad,” she tells him, then whistles short, drawing an index finger from her eye down her cheek.

“Why?” 12213 asks, head cocked to one side. It’s a genuine question. Tentative bonds are common in the pens, but they all know nothing permanent can form. In three years time, they’ll undergo their first auction and could end up anywhere.

“Papa gone,” she replies. “Alone.”

12213 doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing, but lets her shadow him for the rest of the day and introduces her to the others later. He teaches her their games, how to line up at meal times and for showers, as well as how one comports themselves in the presence of overseers to avoid the whip.

In exchange, she slowly teaches him how to convey meaning with whistles and clicks, away from the overseers. He learns about Alpha Centauri and about his tahlei, its significance and most-importantly its use in both social and militaristic contexts. This information later proves vital when the Kree introduce Yaka to him in a controlled setting, and his apparent natural affinity for the material delights them, having been previously unable to replicate a wild Centaurian’s aptitude with their captive population.

05081 and 12213 still stumble; their mutual cultural illiteracy always a challenge, but sometimes, when he closes his eyes, 12213 can see Alpha Centauri. According to 05081, Alpha Centauri is wet, rain hanging in the air and soaking the ground, and the surroundings are covered in leaves. Having no concept of a forest, he imagines a place very much like the kennels, with its cages and walls, sprouting leaves and berries across all surfaces. Here, everything is steel and grey, but in his mind’s eye, Alpha Centauri is the deepest blue-green.

* * *

Yondu daydreams a lot these days. Mostly, he fantasizes about ridding himself of Quill. Spacing him out an airlock. Abandoning him on a passing asteroid. Hell, he even considered just giving the kid a blaster with the safety switched off and letting nature take its course. No one who has spent more than fifteen minutes in the boy’s presence would fault him for it. His crew might even buy him several celebratory rounds at the best, least-reputable bars of Contraxia until he died of cirrhosis, venereal disease, and happiness, buoyed by the knowledge that he would no longer have to deal with the Terran nuisance.

“Are we there yet?” Quill asks for the twentieth time in as many minutes.

His voice drips with sarcasm and an unhealthy dose of exasperation. “Does it look like we’re anywhere near a fuckin’ way-station, Quill? Do ya see any moons? I know they’re small and hard to miss when they fill yer entire frame o’ vision an’ all ‘cause they’re fuckin’ moons.”

Quill crosses his arms, hunching over his his seat to pout. “Geez… I was just asking. You don’t have to get all bent out of shape about it.”

“Just shut the fuck up ‘til we git there. This is a _simple_ retrieval, so it’s completely within yer skill set. Grave-robbin’. No security, ‘less ya count the curses, which are clearly bullshit. So there ain’t no way yer fuckin’ this one up,” Yondu says, with a reasonable degree of certainty. This was the Terran, however, and as the old adage goes: Where there’s a Quill, there’s a way.

Quill turns to him, fear lacing his voice, “Grave-robbing? Does that mean ghosts? Are you taking me somewhere haunted?”

_Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?_

“Ain’t no such thing as ghosts. Punishments fer failure, on the other hand…” He lets the sentence hang, allowing the boy to come to his own conclusions about the likely repercussions.

Imagination is good for children, right?

“Yer rappellin’ down inta that crypt, ya hear? I don’t want’a hear no bitchin’ ‘bout it, or else tonight I’m tellin’ Cook–“

He doesn’t get to finish the well-worn threat. Just then, the entire M-ship freezes in its tracks, catapulting Yondu forward, smacking his head against the console and knocking him out cold. Strapped down, Quill avoids the same fate, only suffering extensive bruising from his safety harness.

“Yondu? …Yondu, are you okay?” he asks, reaching his foot over the divide to prod his mentor.

The cockpit door slides open, revealing a heavily-armed masked man, aiming a gun first at Yondu’s slumped form then sweeping over to point at Quill. The boy screams as the man shoots him with a tranquilizer dart, then he knows no more.

* * *

12213 is spitting-mad. He’s hopelessly, helplessly angry at the vet, his Master, the Kree, but mostly at himself for having survived his bout with 14203. There’s nothing he can do about it but take his rage out on the only acceptable targets, his opponents in the pit.

He recuperates from the operation, his crystalline crest becoming just as much a part of him as his tahlei had once been. It ached early on, but over time, he feels nothing. He reckons he has never been a real Centaurian anyway, his identity long stripped away until only a macabre Kree abomination remained. The prosthetic suits him.

He will die as he is fated to, in the pits cheered on by an adoring crowd on the cusp of crowning their new champion. The cycle will continue, but at least then, he will not have to witness it.

Then Stakar Ogord and his Ravagers arrive and turn his world on its head.

He had to admit: when his claws tore into Master’s throat, it was the best minute of his life, better than the shuttering clench in his belly he experiences with the sexbots he had been allowed in the aftermath of each victory. However, when that Kree’s eyes dim to filmy nothingness all too quickly, 12213’s rage returns in full force. He hacks away at the man’s face, squeezing his detached eyes to squishy pulp then smashing into his nose until it caves in. Still, he didn’t stop until his fist hit metal on the other side.

It is unfortunate he can only kill a man once.

* * *

When Yondu comes to, Quill is nowhere to be found, but there’s a tall man, Kree from the look of him, crouched just outside his cell, having slid a plastic sip-sack of water between the bars towards him. Yondu whistles out of habit and when nothing happens, pats his side holster to find his Yaka arrow missing.

“I have taken the liberty of removing all your weapons,” the man says, straightening out to his full height.

Yondu has difficulty doing the same, choosing only to rise to a seated position so as not to give this Kree the satisfaction of knowing how much he had managed to incapacitate him. There are greater matters he needs to address.

“Who are ya, an’ what’d chu do to the boy?”

“Who I am is of no relevance. I am here to retrieve you, 12213, former champion of the Korr-Gan pits and most-recently, property of Bar-Dal, the former proprietor of said establishment,” he replies evenly, omitting any mention of Quill’s fate.

Yondu feels the firm bump on his head, suppressing his wince. “I thought that sonuvabitch was dead, killed ‘bout eight or nine years back.” Exactly 9 years, 5 months, 13 days actually, but who’s counting?

“You are correct, but there are others who desire the recovery of their property.”

 _At least this one’s a talker,_ Yondu thinks. He liked talkers. They always gave him new targets for his shrinking hit list.

“So, a bounty hunter, huh? Who hired chu? Was it his sniveling son or maybe some trust of jackasses what come to collect on his debts by trackin’ down an’ sellin’ his assets.”

“It matters not. You are an escaped slave, and there is a significant bounty on your head.”

“Yeah, I figured that much. I was just makin’ conversation. Wonderin’ who’ll put the hammer to my head, so to speak.”

The bounty hunter scoffs. “You assume too much.”

Yondu rolls his eyes. The Kree always had to be exacting in their language, didn’t they? “Alright, a hail o’ blaster fire. Same thing. They ain’t goin’a let someone like me live, not after what I done. Just want’a know who’s puttin’ me down fer good.”

“Despite your questionable temperament, you are good breeding stock, a champion who is himself the son of champions. My employer wishes to harvest your genetic material for future generations.”

Yondu laughs. This man clearly had his wires crossed. It was true the Kree had put a bounty on his head, but he was no stud.

“What chu talkin’ ‘bout? My parents were no-good assholes what sold me to the Kree when I was just a wee baby boy.”

The bounty hunter chuckles darkly. “Your assumptions are amusing to say the least, but you are sorely mistaken. You were never a wild Centaurian. Your pedigree is impeccable. 04631 and 01257 were champions in their own day, but your kennel was reckless with their breeding program. They compromised the captive Centaurian genetic pool. It became too small after the third or fourth generation, and there were unfortunate side-effects. The young were defective, barely viable. They will out-cross you with wild stock to replenish their stores.”

“Yer lyin’,” Yondu says, suddenly deadly serious.

“Did you really think those automatons were rewards?” The bounty hunter adds. “The simplest way to collect a semen sample is to have the subject deposit it willingly.”

Yondu recalls that Kikahee father all those years ago, cooing to his daughter days before they were ultimately separated. His own offspring would have been denied that warm upbringing, raised instead in kennels as numbers, lost and nameless. There’s nothing he can do for them, but there’s still one child he can save.

“An’ the boy?”

“He is safe… for now,” The bounty hunter replies, still amused by Yondu’s ignorance of his own siring. “I have no use for that runt you’re traveling with… his record is clean: no bounty, no one looking for him. I shall give him to the Kree as a bonus. He’s small. Perfect fodder for the younglings they train. Breeders are always looking for something weak, something that won’t cause damage, for future champions to whet their bloodlust before their first bouts in the ring.” Thinking better of it, he continues, “Or if he becomes too much of a nuisance, I will simply eject the excess ballast into the void.”

If Quill miraculously managed to keep his more-annoying predilections at bay (a feat Yondu doubts he can execute even with the proper motivation), he will be torn to shreds in the pens. That can’t happen, but even more surprising to Yondu, he didn’t _want_ it to happen.

He could rail against fate, the bounty hunter, his former masters, cursing both them and their mothers’ rancid wombs that bore them, but instead, he affects a casual attitude. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Sell me back, sure… I’m a runner with a price on my head. Makes sense, but the kid? A rare find like that’s worth more’n you’d ever git fer me.”

The bounty hunter scoffs. “He’s Xandarian. The boy is as common as they come.”

“Kid ain’t Xandarian. He don’t know it yet, but he’s Celestial, or at least got plenty genetics of one. Either way, there’s a market fer somethin’ like ‘im. He don’t look it, but he’s powerful stock,” Yondu divulges, appealing to the man’s greed. “Undamaged, o’ course,” he emphasizes.

“You’re bluffing. You’re just trying to save your precious catamite,” he accuses, distaste clear in his tone.

“I don’t fuck children,” Yondu growls. “Kid’s got potential is all. Ain’t no tellin’ how them Celestial genes’ll come out in the future. He’s an investment. But hey, don’t believe me, fair ‘nough. Git a sample direct from the source, an’ check his genetic profile yerself. Yer proof’s right there. Blood don’t lie.”

“Boy, if this is a ruse, I’m going to eviscerate that child in front of you, and show you exactly how ordinary he is inside and out.”

* * *

When the bounty hunter returns forty minutes later, Quill is slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, or rather a sack of particularly energetic f’saki. He’s shouting, kicking the man in his chest as his tiny fists beat a staccato pattern across his back.

“I will muzzle you if I have to, child,” he threatens, as he roughly deposits him on the floor of another cell located across from Yondu, closing the door behind him. “You are fortunate the Kree will likely be interested in purchasing you, and if not, I am sure the Collector is willing to pay a small fortune for someone with your valuable genes.”

With that, he leaves, heading towards the comm to contact his employers.

“What’s he talking about, Yondu? He says my jeans are valuable, but you left those back on the Eclector,” Peter blathers on, once the man is out of sight. “I mean… they’re Levi’s so they’re pretty cool, but I don’t think they’d fit him even if I still had them to give. Which I don’t. Because you took them.”

Quill had a knack for focusing on unimportant minutiae, much to Yondu’s continual aggravation.

“Never you mind ‘bout that, Quill. You alright?”

The boy pats his limbs and chest, checking for damage from his rough handling. Finding nothing major, he replies. “Yeah, I think so… but I don’t get it. Why is he so interested in my pants? In afterschool specials, they warned us about adults trying to get in your pants, but all he did was stick a Q-tip in my mouth when I tried to bite him. He didn’t like it, but I didn’t like it when he caged me, so–”

“Stars! Don’t chu ever shut up?” Yondu interrupts him, massaging his temple. “I’m tryin’a think of a way out’a here, an’ you ain’t helpin’ by runnin’ yer mouth a klick a second.” If only he could get five minutes of uninterrupted silence, he might be able to cobble together a plan to get the both of them out unscathed. The boy is deadweight, but it would help if he wasn’t also an active hindrance to their escape.

“Yeah… about that…” Quill holds up a flat access key. “I palmed it off of him when he put me in here.”

Yondu stares at the pilfered key in disbelief. “Ya… ya nicked it?”

“Yeah, just like you showed me. He was so upset about me biting him and trying to kick him that he didn’t even notice when I slipped it out,” Quill replies, relishing in Yondu’s cautious pride.

He slips his arm through the bars, pressing the card against the access panel. It beeps green, the lock clicking open.

“I made a distraction, just like you taught me.” He adds, stopping just outside Yondu’s cell.

Perhaps there is hope for the boy after all.

“Yeah… I’m surprised your advice worked, too.”

Nevermind. The minute Yondu saves their skins, into the stew-pot he will go.

Speaking of which… “What’re ya waitin’ fer? Git me out’a here.”

Quill shakes his head. “Nuh-uh. First, I want you to promise me that you’ll give me back my Walkman.” He dangles the card just out of Yondu’s reach.

Yondu grits his teeth. “This ain’t the time fer negotiations.”

_Was the kid really going to be a dick about this?_

“Promise me.”

_Yep._

“Let me out, Quill. That’s an order.”

“No.”

Yondu closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as he exhales slowly. “Yer really not goin’a let me out so I can save both our skins? Boy, ya know where we’re headin’, right? Ya want’a know what they do to soft brats like you in the pits? Ya wouldn’t last five minutes, but they’ll make ya wish you went sooner.”

Peter stands firm in his resolve. He may not know the textbook definition of ‘leverage,’ but he knows when he has it. “I want my Walkman back.”

Generally-speaking, knowledge is power in negotiations. The man with a greater grasp of what he’s bargaining for and the respective position of each party can navigate a more favorable result… except in cases where he’s dealing with a dumbass too stupid to realize he’s in grave danger.

Quill doesn’t know what’s waiting for them back in Hala, but Yondu does. He knows he can survive it – he has before – but Quill? The boy will break.

“Alright, kid. You drive a hard bargain. Swear I’ll give it back if that asshole don’t kill us first.”

Smug in his ability to finally extract a concession from Yondu, Quill smiles. “Thank you. Was that so hard?” He holds the key over the access panel.

Unlike his cell, this one prompts a palm reader to appear. Quill places his own hand within the outline. It flashes red. _Access Denied._

“What’s takin’ so long?” Yondu asks, growing impatient.

“Uh…” Quill passes the key over several times, growing more and more frantic as each attempt leads to the same result. “It keeps asking for a palm print, but it’s not working,” he finally admits.

Fuck. It seems Yondu’s cell required additional biometric information to unlock it… information that only the bounty hunter could provide.

“What are we going to do!” Quill rattles the bars of the cell.

“Stop that!” Yondu whispers loudly, enclosing Quill’s tiny fists with his own to still them. “First, don’t freak out. Yer goin’a do what I say, an’ we’re gittin’ out’a here, yeah?”

Quill hesitates before nodding his head. He’s open to any and all instruction from his mentor.

Yondu angles his head to survey the holding room to his right, but due to the angle of the cell, he can only see the edge. “Alright. I need chu to do some recon fer me. Be quiet, an’ look around that area yonder. Yer goin’a see a yellow box about this big–” He holds his hands approximately two feet apart, “–by this big square.” His hands reduce to approximately six inches apart. “My arrow’s inside. I need chu to open this box an’ bring me my arrow. If ya git caught – and this is very important – holler so I know yer position, an’ don’t stop ‘til it’s safe. You got that, Quill?”

“How will I know it’s safe?”

“You’ll know.”

Quill sneaks into the adjacent room, sifting through various weapons and gadgets, perusing the shelves and drawers full of potentially-deadly mechanisms. If they weren’t in mortal danger, he might have enjoyed this jaunt through a high-tech alien armory. Finally, he comes across a box fitting Yondu’s description. He unlatches the closure, unlifting it to sneak a peak inside.

He’s immediately and violently swept up from behind. The box clacks to the bottom, spilling open.

“What do you think you’re doing, you little brat!” The bounty hunter roars at the terrified child. “How did you escape?”

Quill screams, as loud as he can manage. He feels a searing heat pass his left ear as the man’s grip slackens and he falls backwards, Quill landing on his chest.

He looks up at the man’s face. His eyes are opened in surprise, a cauterized hole neatly placed over his left eye.

The boy scoots back off the body, his legs inadvertently kicking the man’s ribs as he backs into a corner and sobs.

“Quill!” Yondu calls out, his voice frantic, from the adjacent cell. “Quill! Where are ya, kid!”

“…Over here!” Quill calls back, his voice wobbly.

“I didn’t git chu, did I?” Yondu asks, calmer now.

“No, but I think this guy’s dead.”

“Yeah, that was the idea,” Yondu replies. “Ya wouldn’t happen ta be able ta carry him over ‘ere an’ let me out, would chu?”

Quill looks at the dead man slumped before him. Even if he wasn’t three times his body weight, he wouldn’t have the stomach for it.

“…No.”

“Alright, kid. I want chu to knock the floor near his right hand, then back up an’ close yer eyes.”

“What are you going to do?” Quill asks, suddenly apprehensive about any further requests from his mentor.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to. Just trust me, an’ do what I say.”

For once, he obeys Yondu’s commands without complaint, turning away towards the corner and closing his eyes when he’s done.

Yondu whistles a tune, far longer than anything Quill had heard him attempt before. He hears the sizzle and swish of the arrow passing through something wet, so he covers his ears.

This does nothing to prevent the smell of charred flesh, so he breathes through his mouth instead.

He’s concentrating so hard on blocking out his surroundings that he jumps when he feels the hand on his shoulder. He turns to face Yondu’s familiar midsection, latching on immediately and burying his face in the leathers there. There’s hesitation before strong arms wrap around his shoulders in an awkward embrace. He peaks around Yondu to peer at the dead bounty hunter then quickly closes his eyes again when he sees the bloody stump at the end of the bounty hunter’s right wrist, a trail of blood drops leading back towards the holding cells where the arrow had pierced and carried the severed hand. He shutters in Yondu’s arms, but the man doesn’t call him out on his display of weakness.

Yondu had been around Quill’s age the first time he killed someone. 12217 had been Centaurian, like him, and in the aftermath, Yondu had scrubbed his arms raw until the blood speckling from his damaged skin was his own.

“Let’s go home, Quill.”

They commandeer the bounty hunter’s smaller vessel, heading back towards the last known coordinates of the Eclector. Quill curls up in the passenger seat, where he stays silent and turned away from his captain.

“Ya best git used to it,” Yondu says, having decided that Quill has pouted long enough.

“To what? Killing people?”

“It was either him or us, an’ I chose us. If I had let ‘im live, he wouldn’t’a stopped. I’d be in the pits, an’ you? You’d be someone’s pet, or worse.” Yondu hadn’t ruled out vivisection.

“How’s that any different than what I am now?” Quill’s tone is so full of vitriol, it manages to stun Yondu into momentary silence. “You stole me away, took away my Walkman and all my clothes, and I’m not allowed to talk about Earth ever again. I didn’t even bust you out, so I’m sure you won’t give me my music back anymore. I can’t even remember all the words to…” Peter chokes up before continuing. “I’m your pet, right? That’s what you aliens do. Kidnap kids and turn them into fancy pets.”

Yondu recalls the Kikahee and his childish visions of Alpha Centauri and the Kree accent he can never shake.

“You’ll git yer Walk-man back,” he says. “I gave ya my word, an’ ‘sides ya did good back there. Figured ya earned it.”

Quill glances over, his eyes wide and voice cautious, unused to the praise. “…Really? This isn’t a trick, right?”

“No. An’ you can have all yer other shit, too. I’m tired o’ havin’ it in my quarters. You can keep it in yer footlocker on the Eclector. No one’s goin’a take it from ya.” _Least of all me,_ is what he implies. The Kree may have stole Alpha Centauri away from him, stripped him of any connection to his ancestral homeworld, but he won’t do that to Quill. The boy can’t return to Terra – it isn’t safe for him there, not with the looming threat of Ego dogging their heels – but Quill will remain as Terran as Yondu can manage.

“We got a long way ‘fore we git back to the Eclector… You want’a tell me ‘bout yer great Terran cultural hero. The proctologist who removes sticks from peoples’ asses all the time?”

Quill turns around completely to face Yondu, his tone betraying surprise. “You mean Kevin Bacon? You want to hear the story of Footloose?”

“…Yeah. Tell me ‘bout yer Footloose.”

**Author's Note:**

> When watching GotG movies, I always questioned how Peter has such perfect recall of TV shows and movies when he left Earth at the age of 8. I mean, if you left Earth at 8 years old in 1988, wouldn’t you remember the original run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles more than Cheers, if you remembered anything at all? Wouldn’t the details of any show fade with time? Realistically, this was done for comedic and nostalgic effect, but here is my in-universe explanation: Yondu helped Peter keep his memories of Earth alive because he wanted him to have a past and connection to his people that Yondu himself was denied as a slave. Part of slavery is denying a person their own culture and identity, and Yondu just didn’t want that for Peter. He kept Peter soft; he kept him as Terran as he could, because ultimately, he couldn’t bear to do to someone else what had been done to him.
> 
> Below is the GotG Kinkmeme Prompt in full:
> 
> “I’m going to hell. History lesson: if a dog breed has bull in the name it means we humans used to make them fight bulls. When that was outlawed we decided to have the dogs fight each other. With the owners doing this to the dogs breeding the best fighters to make better fighters in the next generation.
> 
> Yondu was born a battle slave. Bred of champions. A truth Yondu learns when a Kree bounty hunter sent by Yondu’s breeder catches him. Bounty hunter is taking him to be used as a stud. Gloats bounty hunter to Yondu. Leaving Yondu to wonder if he ever met his parents or siblings during his slave days? Did he kill them in the arena?”


End file.
